The word Holocaust means a " whole (holos) burnt (kaustos)" which I assume means the burnt and suffered as a whole.
Railroad Leading to Auschwitz
The Holocaust was when the Nazis killed Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religous opponents in terrible ways. The Germans thought that they were the cream of the crop and the best there was. They thought that anyone that wasn't like them was imperfect and shouldn't be alive. So they went right ahead and killing everyone that was "imperfect". Most of the deaths were in concentration camps where the Nazis killed them at gun point, gases, or starvation. They killed between 11 million and 17 million people in the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was when the Nazis killed Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religous opponents in terrible ways. The Germans thought that they were the cream of the crop and the best there was. They thought that anyone that wasn't like them was imperfect and shouldn't be alive. So they went right ahead and killing everyone that was "imperfect". Most of the deaths were in concentration camps where the Nazis killed them at gun point, gases, or starvation. They killed between 11 million and 17 million people in the Holocaust.